User:Ashok Kumar Patel

Ashok Kumar Patel was born on June 1st, 1980 in a small village of Varanasi, U.P. After his schooling from Tulsi Vidya Niketan, S.G.R.R.Public School, subsequently from Central Hindu Boy’s School, Varanasi, UP, India; he pursued ‘Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics’ at Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi and graduated in specialized subject ‘Physics’ with a B.Sc. (Hons.) degree in 2001. Following this, he earned a Masters degree in Physics with specialization in ‘Laser and Advanced Spectroscopy’ in 2004 from Department of Physics, BHU, Varanasi. He qualified “Graduate Aptitude test (GATE) in 2004” in Physical sciences, conducted by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi, India and secured 99.14 percentile. He also qualified in “Joint Entrance Screening Test (JEST) in 2004” in Physical sciences with 92 Percentile. Subsequent after qualifying “National Eligibility Test (NET)” for Junior Research fellowship (JRF) from Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)- India, he inspired towards interdisciplinary research and joined the Molecular Biology Unit, Institute of Medical Sciences, BHU, Varanasi in October 2004 for his doctoral studies as CSIR-JRF. He has been recipient of JRF at Molecular biology unit, IMS, BHU for the first two years followed by Senior research Fellowship (SRF) and is a registered Ph.D. student since March 2005. During the period of his research work, he has been awarded Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds (BIF) Germany, fellowship and worked with Prof. David W. Rice, at Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Sheffield, UK during 15 January 2007-14 April 2007 for the advancement in crystallography. He also availed three months training in protein crystallization and structure determination in the laboratory of Prof B.W. Dijkstra, Protein crystallography group, University of Groningen, The Netherlands during 30 March 2008-26 June 2008, with the aid again by the award of BIF fellowship. At present, he is a CSIR-SRF at the Molecular Biology Unit, IMS, BHU, Varanasi, India.He has completed his Ph.D. and submitted thesis on 29 December 2008, entitled "Protein folding paradigm and structure function perspectives of a novel multifunctional enzyme from a plant weed Ipomoea carnea".